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Lot Essay
LEwis served in the First World War as a gunner in the Royal Artillery (1916-17). Although he spent the Second World War in America and Canada, he worked as an Official War Artist, painting A Canadian War Factory (Tate Gallery, London) in 1943. War remained a pre-occupation throughout his life.
The present work was one of Lewis' last watercolours. The artist originally described it as 'Poilus taking their babies to visit the graves of their mothers', but later said that they were not beings who inhabit this world. Paul Edwards (Wyndham Lewis, Art and War, Imperial War Museum exhibition catalogue, London, 1992, p. 53) comments on the present work, 'It is a fantastic and obscure image, the figures having a fluctuating and indefinite existence. But since the figures who carry the babies are soldiers, it can be assumed that the graves are those of the mothers; victims perhaps of some war. Lewis had lost his own mother in the influeza epidemic that followed the First World War'.
The present work was one of Lewis' last watercolours. The artist originally described it as 'Poilus taking their babies to visit the graves of their mothers', but later said that they were not beings who inhabit this world. Paul Edwards (Wyndham Lewis, Art and War, Imperial War Museum exhibition catalogue, London, 1992, p. 53) comments on the present work, 'It is a fantastic and obscure image, the figures having a fluctuating and indefinite existence. But since the figures who carry the babies are soldiers, it can be assumed that the graves are those of the mothers; victims perhaps of some war. Lewis had lost his own mother in the influeza epidemic that followed the First World War'.